Abstract
The Czech Republic can be considered one of the most successful transitions towards democracy from the Third Wave of democratization. There have been elections since 1990, from local to national level, that fully met criteria of democratic standards, political and civic rights are guaranteed and the party system has been institutionalized.
Despite the official institutions that in a global comparison function more or less well, there is a large majority of people that is not satisfied with the state of Czech democracy and is disillusioned by the political development after the Velvet Revolution. The disillusion with political situation deeply influences attitudes of citizens towards democracy as political regime.
If we studied only formal institutions, we could consider the Czech Republic as a country where democracy is almost consolidated. The objective of the paper is to apply defects of democracy that have been introduced by authors as Merkel, Carothers and O’Donnell to present deficiencies of Czech democracy in 21st century.
What we can observe is that there is a large number of attributes and characteristics of hybrid regimes that overlap with today’s situation and can help us explain problems of contemporary Czech Republic and its democracy. Among these can be listed attitudes of Czechs towards democracy, their participation in public affairs, their attitudes towards politics, discourse that in many ways reminds us the concept of “delegative democracy” and political elites that are perceived as self-interested and corrupt.